‘Marco’s right. Besides, the first priority is to hunt down those pieces of shit,’ Rossini said. ‘Everything else can wait.’
Max added some ice to his glass. ‘I’ll do a blowup of the Master of Knots’ tattoos. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find the guy who does them.’
‘Assuming they were done in Italy,’ I added doubtfully.
‘It’s worth a try. Anyway, there’s nothing else we can do except try to snare them with a website ad.’
‘Let’s hope Jacovone’s death hasn’t scared them off,’ Beniamino said.
I rubbed my new Ronson lighter against my jeans to put a bit of a shine on it. ‘I wouldn’t worry. He had a lot of enemies. And for all the Master of Knots and his gang know, the job could have been done by one of his competitors or by some client unhappy with the goods.’
‘Docile Woman told us that the Bang Gang doesn’t do it solely for money,’ Max reminded us. ‘They’re probably already on the lookout for fresh victims.’
‘Let’s start by seeing where the tattoos lead us,’ Rossini suggested. ‘We could go to Milan tomorrow and then on to Turin . . . ’
‘Well, personally, tomorrow I’m going to Genoa for the anti-G8 demonstration,’ Max reminded us. ‘I’ll be away a couple of days, but I can get you a list of tattoo artists.’ He switched on his computer and connected to the Internet. It took him the best part of an hour to put together a list of names and addresses for every tattoo artist in Northern Italy.
Beniamino dropped his cigarettes, lighter, and cell phone in his pocket. ‘I’m going to take a boat trip,’ he said. ‘I need to spend some time on my own to get over that lousy video shit.’
Max stroked his prominent paunch. ‘You said earlier you wouldn’t be using a bullet to kill the Master of Knots. What did you mean?’
‘I want him to be fully aware he’s about to die,’ Rossini replied seriously. ‘Second after second after second of pain and lucidity.’
‘Don’t you think that’s going a bit far?’ I asked.
‘No, I don’t. But if the idea upsets your noble little hearts, I’ll leave the matter in your hands.’
Fat Max and I exchanged a glance. We’d never have the guts to pull the trigger.
‘Do as you like,’ I said.
Rossini made for the door, then turned back and gave Max a pat on the cheek. ‘Keep out of the cops’ way,’ he advised. ‘And if there’s any trouble, call us immediately.’
‘I guess talking it over would be pointless,’ I said.
‘Right.’
I retired to my apartment, wanting to be on my own to try drowning in alcohol the horrific pictures still stubbornly lingering in my mind. I started into the bottle without even turning on the stereo: there could be no blues sad enough.
Max knocked on my door in the middle of the night and followed me into the kitchen, where I gulped down a glass of iced water and a couple of headache tablets.
‘Didn’t you get drunk?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘I wanted to think.’
‘And I bet you’re now going to tell me in minute detail everything that’s been rattling round in your head, right?’ I mumbled, slurring my words. ‘Ruining my therapeutic binge.’
‘Those images made me think of torture; I mean the kind they use to make you talk.’
I sat down and lit a cigarette. Whatever Max had to say was going to take a while.
‘I’ve been hearing about it for years now,’ Max continued in a soft voice. ‘When I was a kid the accounts of the Resistance, then later the stories that South American refugees told . . .’
‘Make your point, Max. I want to get back to bed.’
‘All those who withstood torture have become heroes, whereas those who surrendered have come to be regarded as traitors.’
I shrugged. ‘That’s the way life is. What’s the problem?’
‘While I was watching those videos, I realized I could never withstand torture.’
‘I don’t reckon I could either. Look, when I was arrested they beat me for an entire night. The only reason I didn’t talk was because I knew fuck-all.’
‘But Old Rossini never said a single word.’
‘Like lots of others, including people you wouldn’t bet a lira on. Maybe it depends on the situation you find yourself in.’
‘I’m glad I was never put to the test, and, anyway, I’m no longer so sure that those who talk under torture are traitors.’
‘I don’t know and really don’t want to start worrying about it,’ I snorted. ‘The rule is that when you need information, first you ask nicely and then you break bones. Face it; it’s a method we use, too. Intimidation, violence, and blackmail are the only techniques for making people talk.’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s just that I’ve never before imagined myself in a situation where I had to decide between talking and getting beaten to a pulp.’
‘And there’s no point in imagining it now, either.’
Max got up. He said goodnight with a wave of his hand and headed for the door.
‘I’ve got a story for you,’ I said.
‘Another of your prison stories?’ he asked sarcastically.
‘Back in the days when grassing up your comrades was just getting to be the height of fashion, those involved in armed struggle began to lose any trust they had ever had in one another. So every time one of them went to see the doctor, the prison governor or the prison admin office, he had to be accompanied by a fellow comrade just to make sure he didn’t cut a deal with the cops. But in the end they always found a way.’
‘So?’
‘Torture had fuck-all to do with it. The only thing they were afraid of was doing time and growing old behind bars. They got off lightly, every last one of them.’
‘I can’t see what you’re driving at.’
‘You can understand and forgive someone who talks because his nuts are in a vice. Anybody can have a moment’s weakness, but ratting is something else. So before you get yourself into trouble it’s best to work out whether or not you have the balls to do prison.’
‘And you have?’
‘Not any more. Whatever happens, I’m never going back inside.’
‘Does Old Rossini see things the same way?’
‘Sure. You play the game for as long as you can keep winning, then you let someone else have a go.’
‘You bow out forever?’
‘It’s the only way to avoid spending the rest of your life being fucked up the ass.’
‘I understand.’
‘Think about it, Max. Some things it’s best to consider really carefully.’
Before leaving for Genoa, Max had printed out a dozen or so enlargements of the Master of Knots’ tattoos. I took yet another long, hard look at them, then popped them into the glove compartment of Beniamino’s Chrysler. We hit the autostrada at about 9 A.M. The heat was still bearable and, anyway, the car’s air-conditioning would give us adequate protection.
My associate was not in a good mood. I didn’t mention the conversation I’d had with Max; he would only have made his usual snide remarks about the failings and feebleness of Max’s and my generation.
‘I’ve still got those videos lodged in my brain,’ he suddenly burst out. ‘Just think—last night I couldn’t make love to Sylvie.’
‘It happens.’
‘That’s what she said, too, and then pointed out that I’m not as young as I used to be.’
‘And that’s what really pissed you off.’
‘You bet.’
‘And so you had a row . . .’
‘I got dressed and cleared off.’
‘But you’ll phone her this evening and make up.’
‘By rights, she ought to phone me.’
‘But you’re a gentleman . . .’
‘The
thing is, I’m as lovesick as any teenager. I’d really like us to last a good while longer yet.’
‘It looks to me like a pretty solid relationship.’
‘But she’s a nightclub performer. You know what they’re like: one day they grow tired of wherever they are and just move on. And Sylvie’s not so young either. Another few years and she’ll have to retire.’
‘Ever thought of marrying her?’
He burst out laughing and didn’t reply. He turned on the radio. The news was all about the G8 Summit. Tens of thousands of demonstrators were converging on Genoa and the Minister of the Interior had stated in an interview, ‘As long as I’m in charge, the Italian police will not open fire on demonstrators.’
Old Rossini knew Milan like the back of his hand, so we set about investigating the tattoo studios one by one. By the middle of the afternoon, however, we were beginning to suspect that this was not going to lead us to the Master of Knots. In the evening, our fears were confirmed.
‘Those tattoos were done in Japan,’ Jack ‘the Needle’ Lovisetti told us. He was putting the finishing touches on a dragon he had been tattooing on a girl’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure of it. I’ve been to Japan and seen how they work. You can tell by the colors they’ve used and the way the designs are beaten. And the geishas have their genitals covered up, in line with Japanese figurative custom.’
‘It could be somebody who learned their technique in Japan.’
‘Impossible—I’d have heard of them.’
‘Is there no way you can help us?’
‘No. All I can do is give you a nice tattoo.’
‘No thanks,’ I replied.
‘I’ve got one I’d like improved,’ Beniamino said enthusiastically. He removed his jacket and rolled his shirtsleeve right up to his shoulder, displaying the image of a man and a woman making love under a palm tree in the moonlight.
‘That’s a really shitty piece of work,’ Jack remarked. ‘Where did you have it done? San Vittore prison?’
‘Yes, as it happens,’ Rossini replied dryly.
Suddenly Lovisetto no longer felt the urge to be funny. ‘Well, there’s nothing you can do about it. If you don’t like it, your only option is minor surgery.’
I dragged Beniamino out of the studio before the situation degenerated.
‘That guy ought to learn some manners,’ Rossini scowled.
‘Well, he does have a point,’ I hit back. ‘That tattoo really is ugly. And what he told us was helpful; we can stop wasting our time on this goose chase.’
I tried to light a cigarette but my lighter was out of gas. Rossini reached for his 1970s Marseilles-Mafia-style solid-gold Dunhill. ‘What you need to remember with lighters is every now and then to put in some gas.’
I took a drag. ‘If we want to catch the Master of Knots, we’d better hope for a stroke of luck.’
‘That bastard’s not getting away with it.’
‘Right now, he’s got the upper hand.’
Before leaving Milan, Rossini wanted to stop for a pizza in the city center. The restaurant proprietor pulled out all the stops. She had once been the woman of a bank robber who had done several jobs with Beniamino, and who had died in a gunfight with the carabinieri as he was trying to make his getaway after raiding a bank near Brescia. The pizzas looked and smelled really inviting but I had eaten too many as a student and all I could now manage was a couple of bites. On the other hand, there was a Calvados sorbet on the dessert list, so I ordered one and washed it down with a glass of Morin.
Rossini asked the waiter if we could watch the news on the big-screen TV normally used only for following football matches. The G8 summit in Genoa was the first item. While the world’s leaders had been pretending to work on a solution to the planet’s problems, a massive protest march had moved off from Piazza Carignano. The pictures showed a sea of smiling people singing and dancing while thousands of police officers lining the streets observed them from behind the visors of their helmets. They were positioned to defend the so-called red zone, a section of the city that had been turned into a metal cage and declared off-limits to make quite sure the big shots weren’t disturbed. There hadn’t been a single incident. Reassured, I ordered another Calvados. I would have liked to call Max on his cell phone but I didn’t want to act like a mother hen.
It was just past six in the afternoon and I was back home enjoying the air-conditioning and listening to some blues. Every now and then I drank a sip. Thinking about Virna made me thirsty. I was missing her. I was tempted to call her but couldn’t think of a sufficiently casual-but-intelligent opening phrase. Then I heard some loud knocking at my door and through the peephole saw a distorted image of Beniamino.
‘Have you any news of Max?’ he asked, somber-faced.
I shook my head. ‘Has something happened in Genoa?’
‘An hour ago, the carabinieri killed a demonstrator.’
I rushed to switch on the TV. Scenes of clashes. A body lying on the ground close to a Carabinieri jeep. White vest, jeans, and a blood-soaked dark-blue balaclava. A cop, realizing a TV camera was trained on him, started to yell at a masked youth who was running away. ‘It was you who killed him, with that stone you threw, you piece of shit!’
I glanced at Rossini, whose arm swept the air in an angry gesture. ‘It’s all just bullshit.’
I turned down the volume and dialed Max’s cell phone. He replied at the third ring. ‘We’re running for it,’ he panted. ‘I’ll call you as soon as I’m safe.’
While waiting for Max to call back, we channel-hopped, watching the pictures from Genoa. I hit the mute button—any commentary was superfluous. The demonstrators had fallen into the most classic of traps. Little groups of provocateurs and other morons, referred to generically as the Black Bloc, backed up by a bunch of undercover cops, had had no trouble whatsoever sparking the rioting, handing the police the excuse they needed to charge the march in a part of the city well away from the so-called Red Zone. Something of that nature had to have been planned in advance. There was a lot of new kit on display: shiny American riot batons, a new form of tear gas manufactured in Italy under American license, and flashy new body armor that made the cops look like baddies in some old sci-fi flick. Then in the piazza there were carabinieri and riot police. The Guardia di Finanza officers were the most ferocious of the lot.
‘From kickbacks to kicked heads: they’re really making progress,’ Rossini quipped.
Every now and then, the cameras trained their lenses back on Piazza Alimonda, where the demonstrator had died. By this time it had been established that he had been killed by a shot fired from inside the jeep and that the jeep had then run over him. In fact, the carabinieri had opened fire several times that day, until someone ended up dead.
‘He was just a boy,’ I murmured. He was small and slender, his arms so skinny he had even managed to push an arm through a spool of adhesive tape that he must have found on the ground somewhere, and he’d worked it all the way up past his elbow.
‘They’re just kids,’ Rossini burst out, beside himself with rage. ‘And that goes for the white-haired old-timers, too. They’re just kids who’ve understood fuck-all and are still dreaming.’
My cell phone rang. It was Max. ‘They charged at us without any warning when we were handing out Iraqi dates . . . ’
‘I couldn’t give a fuck,’ I yelled. ‘Move your ass the hell out of Genoa.’
‘No. I’m staying put,’ Max replied calmly. ‘I’m in an area now that’s well away from the clashes. Nothing’ll happen to me.’
‘Don’t you get it? We’re not living in the 1970s anymore . . . ’
‘See you, Marco. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
I glanced at Rossini, then back at the TV screen. A police officer was firing a tear-gas canister into a van full of injured demonstrators. ‘He’s not coming back,’ I said. ‘He has to finish
handing out his Iraqi dates.’
Beniamino shrugged and lit himself a cigarette.
A few hours later, downstairs at La Cuccia, the air was heavy with tension. Maurizio Camardi got up on stage and put his sax case down on a chair. ‘We’ve decided not to play tonight. We’re sad, angry, and worried.’
His words were met with applause, then we all raised a glass to the memory of the kid who had been killed, Carlo Giuliani. It was a miserable evening, charged with anger. A customer I knew approached my table. Twenty-five years earlier he had been a left-wing militant. ‘If they’d organized the kind of stewarding service we used to have, the cops would never have dared lash out like that,’ he said.
Old Rossini fumed. ‘Another of your pathetic fucking lefty veterans.’
The customer switched tables and we resumed drinking and smoking in silence.
Then Virna walked in, out of breath. The tan she’d acquired down south suited her. I gave her a smile, thinking she might have come to see me. ‘Where’s Max?’ she asked, sounding worried.
‘In Genoa,’ I replied indifferently, trying to hide my disappointment.
‘I guessed as much.’
‘He’s fine,’ Rossini interjected.
‘Thank heavens,’ she said, sitting down.
‘What do you want to drink?’ I asked.
‘You’ve already forgotten what I drink?’
I ordered a glass of vintage Spanish brandy. Virna started talking about what was happening in Genoa.
‘If you’re going to talk about Genoa, you’ve got the wrong table,’ I cut in.
She pushed her chair angrily to one side and stalked off.
‘You really are a jerk,’ Old Rossini said.
‘Don’t you start.’
‘You resented the fact that she came here asking after Max.’
‘I admit it,’ I said. ‘I was hoping she’d throw herself into my arms like the old days.’
Rossini shook his head, then looked at his watch. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning. If anything happens, call me, whatever the hour.’
The Master of Knots Page 11